


The Road Rises to Meet You

by scribble_blog



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Guardian Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I WILL be making up my own rules for how these universes mesh as necessary, I'm Bad At Tagging, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Visits Gotham City, Multi, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, me gingerly attempting to do the same to Damian: this ones really only good for repression, me patting Marinette on the head: oh this bad boy can fit SO much self esteem issues in it!, true holders
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 11:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30004479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribble_blog/pseuds/scribble_blog
Summary: When Marinette becomes Ladybug, the world wakes up to find names written on their skin, telling them who their soulmate is.*****Marinette likes the idea of soulmates- even if she'd rather focus on defeating Hawkmoth before she has to meet hers.This does not mean things will go well for Marinette when she finally meets the person who has her name on him.*****Damian Wayne doesn't even let his family know he likes them most of the time, so the idea of a soulmate is... off-putting, to say the least.This doesn't mean things don't fall into place in his head when he meets the person who has his name on her.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Jonathan Kent, Chloé Bourgeois/Kagami Tsurugi, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne
Comments: 35
Kudos: 205





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! For those not on tumblr or the discord, I'm Ali, or scribble-blog. For those who are, hi again!  
> This story is a rewrite of my soulmate AU on tumblr, which means there will be parts especially in the beginning which mirror or just plain copy the first story. As we get further in, there will be more and larger divergences, so don't worry if you've read the other- it won't spoil too much as we continue!  
> This story will be updated three times a month, with updates hitting tumblr on the 1st, 11th, and 21st. Ao3 will get every chapter a day or two after. This will probably be the case for any stories I move here and continue to update, simply because tumblr is where I spend most of my time.  
> As you can see, I have chosen not to use archive warnings. As of now, none apply. I have no intentions of there being any rape/noncon or underage sexual content AT ALL. There is a small possibility of graphic violence or death, depending on where the story leads me. Any chapters that contain archive-warning worthy content will be labelled as the first line in the beginning notes in capital letters, as such: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS _________. I will note in story where this occurs, and summarize in the end notes for those who don't enjoy reading that content. I hope this will be an okay way to deal with that so the story can still be read!  
> Thank you for joining and enjoying this story with me!

Marinette sighed, exhaustion seeping into her bones as Tikki gently patted her hand. “It’s just too much, Tikki- I know you said I was chosen for it, but…”

“It’s a lot to take in, Marinette,” The kwami’s wide blue eyes were piercing, “but I know you’ll come to the right decision. You’ve already done so well as Ladybug!”

Marinette bit her lip, her mind flashing back to that afternoon, in front of the Eiffel Tower. After school, Alya had accompanied her back to the bakery, and spent the whole time replaying and replaying the footage she’d found of the impromptu… speech, that Marinette had given to Hawkmoth. And Paris. And the world, because Alya had spent the next few hours finding the _best_ footage from her speech, contacting the person who’d taken it, and getting their approval to put it on the Ladyblog, which was such a hassle that she’d grimaced at Marinette and declared, “I’m never doing this again. I’ve _got_ to get my own footage from now on.”

And none of Marinette’s warnings and worries about her safety had gotten through her head after that.

And now, with Tikki looking up at her so earnestly- how could she make the _right_ decision when she was so certain that the right decision would be to pass on the Miraculous to someone who could be there for Paris, who would be better able to protect them?

“I know you don’t think you can do it,” Tikki’s voice reached her as if through layers of blanket, heavy and laden with knowledge, like she’d seen this- seen everything, and already knew what Marinette would do. Maybe she did. “But I am older than you could even conceive, Marinette. And I have seen more Ladybugs than I can tell you. Can you trust that I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think you could do it?”

She took a deep breath.

“Fine. Yes. I’ll be Ladybug.”

She prayed she wouldn’t fail.

*****

She dreamed of falling that night, soaring downward without direction and no end in sight.

It did not end until her tears dried in the warm wind.

*****

Her phone woke her in the morning, the buzzing unstopping. She checked it blearily, hearing Tikki’s quiet question and batting the sound away.

“What’s going on?” She mumbled to herself, opening it to texts from Alya, all in capital letters.

**THE NEWS IS SAYING ITS SOULMATES** , the most recent screamed up at her, and then as she read, **GIRL, MY SOULMATE IS NINO!!!!!!**

She blinked at that, and then scrolled up to the previous messages, until she reached a wall of text links. She clicked one at random, to find an article saying, “ _Names Appear Overnight, With Little Explanation to be Found!_ ”

She backed out of it, clicked the next with bewilderment.

“ _No Claim to Origin of Name Phenomenon._ ” Next.

“ _Jagged Stone Name Appearance! Could “P” Be Penny Rolling?_ ” Next.

“ _‘Soulmate’ Sites Pop Up as Speculation on Names Reaches Boiling Point._ ” 

She stared, uncomprehending. Tikki flew in front of her, looking at the phone screen. 

“Oh, Marinette, wow!” Tikki buzzed around her head. “This means you’re a true Ladybug!”

“What?” Her own voice was strangled, a squeaky gasp that barely made it out. She dropped her phone back to the pillow and sat up, holding her hand out and letting Tikki alight on her palm. “What do you mean?”

“Some people are just better suited for Miraculous,” or Tikki told her, beaming, “and some people are better suited for specific Miraculous- but sometimes, there are perfect matches- and they always affect the world somehow! I’ve never seen anything like this happen, and nothing on such a worldwide scale. No matter what you think, you’re a perfect Ladybug!” The Kwami latched herself around Marinette’s neck, nuzzling in for a hug. Marinette blinked, and then reopened her phone.

She searched ‘name phenomenon’ and clicked the first result.

“Since the early hours of this morning, reports from every populace on Earth are claiming that tattooed names have showed up on people’s skin with no identified source or cause- and leading experts are baffled as to how, or perhaps more interestingly, why.”

“Through the research and early study of surveys that have been started online, the names seem to match up people up through romantic and platonic compatibility- in a poll of adults ages 17-45, almost 62% of the names were found to be people the surveyed reported to be either already in a relationship with them, close friends, or other positions in their life where they expected to, or would not mind becoming romantically or platonically involved with the name recipient. Online registries have already begun taking off, reporting that these names are an indication of your ‘soulmate’.”

There was more, but Marinette closed her phone again. Numbly, she stumbled out of her bed, down the ladder to where her mirror was, before taking off her pajamas, looking for-

She twisted, searching. Nothing on her chest or stomach, her arms were clear, and her legs didn’t have anything either, but she finally saw, in the mirror- the trailing words, stretching across her upper back, from the edge of one shoulder blade to the next.

Damian Wayne.

She stretched her arms back, to feel the words, almost expecting it to feel different, but it was just smooth. Her fingers traced as clumsily over the words as she could in the mirror, and she almost didn’t hear the telltale sounds of her father’s steps, approaching the loft. She wrestled her shirt back on as he knocked on the hatch. 

“Mari?” His voice was muted through the wood. “Mari, are you up?”

“Yes, Papa,” She shouted, face turning bright red and she scrambled for the trapdoor to see him. “Good morning.”

He looked up at her, with her rumpled shirt and her red face and he sighed , a fond smile on his face. “I bet you’ve heard all about it by now, then. Why don’t you come on down for breakfast and we’ll see what we can figure out?”

She nodded, gathering herself. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

He shut the door and Marinette relaxed, looking back at her bed to see Tikki, just peeking her head above the covers. “He didn’t see me,” she said brightly. “So, do you know who it is?”

Marinette covered her face, trying desperately not to let the blush peek out. She wasn’t even sure why she was blushing! It was just a name, and yet, she wasn’t sure she wanted to think about it. Tikki had said not even Chat Noir could know who she was, and he was her partner! She didn’t even know any Damians, or any Waynes, and if she was going to be Ladybug, should she really seek them out, if she’d have to hide part of herself from them?

“No,” she said instead of letting that cloud of worries deluge out of her mouth. “No, I don’t know who he is.”

_And I don’t want to_ , her brain finished for her. _I don’t want to find out yet._

She got dressed instead of confronting that thought, treating her choice of shirt as if it were the only thing that mattered in her mind, drowning out the occasional buzz of her phone from Alya, and then grabbing it and turning it to silent as she slipped it in her pocket.

And then she turned back to Tikki. “Will my purse work again?”

“Just make sure you sneak me some cookies,” Tikki teased, and as small as it was, and as much as her life had turned into some ridiculous fantastical dream, it made Marinette feel a bit better to have the Kwami of creation on her side, smiling and teasing her.

*****

Damian woke up to the feeling of being watched. It was not unfamiliar, given both how he had been raised with his mother and also the unfortunate abilities trained into the group his father had inadvertently and advertently tethered together. The unfamiliar part, even now, was that in this room, with this particular presence, Damian had felt safe enough that he hadn’t woken up alarmed and ready to fight. 

“Is there a reason you chose to stand and watch me sleep, or are you just here for the thrill of my company this morning,” He let himself grumble. Dick leaned over him with a grin and poked his forehead. Damian swatted his hand away, and never one to censor his thoughts, said, “Are you stupider this morning or simply resisting the stupidity less?”

“You’ll never guess what happened last night.” Dick said, as if that answered any of his questions. 

“You are correct,” Damian pushed him back further, sitting up and getting out of bed. “I’m not guessing.”

He made it halfway out of his room before Dick stopped making affronted noises and followed. “The whole world woke up with tattoos. Bruce’s already heading to confer with the League on why or how this happened.”

The answer actually threw Damian. “Tattoos?” He looked down at his hands, checking the exposed skin and seeing nothing. 

“Names.” Dick said, hand idly moving to the neck of his shirt, before dropping. “Bruce and I both have one, at least, and I figured I should probably warn you so you wouldn’t have to figure out what was happening on your own.”

It was a fair bet to guess that whatever name Grayson had, it was hiding near his collarbone, Damian thought. “And what do we know already?”

“The news is running stories on it like it’s a matching system for dating,” Dick grimaced. “Which, to be fair, it kind of seems like it is.”

“Stop rubbing it, it’s a dead giveaway,” Damian finally said, rolling his eyes. “I couldn't care less about what it is or why it happened until we figure out how someone managed it, or what their intentions are.”

He refused to acknowledge the sudden bright question in his mind of where or what the name on his skin somewhere was. It was much more concerning that some sort of magic had affected the whole world, without any immediate cause to be found. 

“You sound just like Bruce,” Dick rolled his eyes in return, stepping around him and out of the room. “Well, you can rest easy at least for now. We’re pretty sure there's nothing wrong with the tattoos themselves, it’s just how they showed up that’s stumping everyone.”

“I’ll evaluate the situation myself, thanks,” Damian said wryly, and then he closed the door, leaving Dick out in the hall, making more affronted noises.

He told himself it was reasonable to need to see what had happened to him, and not just unbridled curiosity that had him changing immediately, eyes scanning his mirror for anything out of place. It wasn’t difficult to spot- the second he’d lifted his shirt he could see the delicate black lines scrawling across the left side of his ribs, just below his heart. 

Marinette Regina Dupain-Cheng.

He memorized it quickly and covered it up the second he could force himself to, the name echoing in his mind. Marinette Regina Dupain-Cheng. Marinette.

He’d wait to hear what Father discovered before he did anything about it. For the moment, knowing the name that had been stuck to his skin was enough to soothe the uncertainties this situation had forced upon him.

*****

Marinette groaned as her parent’s muffled whispers reached her. “Maman, Papa? What’s for breakfast?”

“Come here, Baobei,” Maman called, and Marinette gave her a kiss on the cheek as she came into the kitchen. “We wanted to let you sleep in a bit longer, but it’s just truly bewildering, isn’t it?”

Of course, her parents had been up since five, to start the bake and open the storefront. They’d known for hours now, and it had apparently lessened the shock a bit.

“I just don’t get it,” Marinette said, honestly, her mind swimming. “It has to be magic, right?”

She didn’t want to lie to them. But she couldn’t tell them she was Ladybug and that it was her fault! If she watched her words, she wouldn’t have to be dishonest… technically.

“Nadja posited that it was Ladybug in her morning show,” Papa said, and Marinette shrunk further into her seat.

“I don’t particularly care why right now,” Maman gave Marinette an affectionate kiss on her forehead as she set a plate down in front of her, and Marinette couldn’t help but lean into the gesture. “We wanted to be the first to let you know, but I suppose your friends must have texted you.”

“It was Alya,” Marinette admitted, fingers tearing nervously into a croissant. 

“We want you to know that nothing’s going to change,” Papa said, and Marinette felt her heart jump.

“Why would they?” She asked, aware of how her voice rose higher. “What’s gonna change?”

“Nothing!” Maman assured her, smacking Papa on the shoulder. “Your father said it oddly, but we really do mean that. Whatever the world decides to do with whatever knowledge this is, we want you to know that we have your back. We’ve already seen some of the arguments that have started over whether people should show their names or hide them, or give them out-“

“I had to kick out that couple at seven,” Papa grumbled, crossing his arms. 

“-but we wanted you to be able to make your own decision, and to know that we’d stick by you.” Maman finished.

It made sense, and the sweetness of her parents made her tear up, her fingers finally pausing in their annihilation of the croissant. “I don’t know if I want to do anything about the name right now. Alya seems so excited, but it’s just so sudden and new-“

“Then you wait, and you make your decision when you feel comfortable,” Papa said softly, grabbing her hand, letting her drum her fingers nervously against the inside of his palm. “Nobody is going to make you feel uncomfortable, whether they want to know about the name or whether they’re the person with that name. We love you, honey.”

“I love you too,” She smiled gratefully at them. “I’ll take my time with it, and I’ll let you know when I decide.” 

She felt a soft, comforting nudge against her side, and rested her hand lightly on her purse, as if trying to say the same to Tikki.


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains quite a bit of back and forth texting, which hopefully is still formatted well enough to be easily readable. If there's any issues or you have ideas of how to better format to make sure this stays easily accessible please let me know!!! I'm not that great at technology or doing things on computers.

Alya was practically frantic when she finally texted back. She’d gone back to her room after breakfast, and even cleaned a bit before she decided she couldn’t put it off any longer.

Mari:

**Good morning Alya~**

Alya:

**GIRL**

**where have you been?**

**you weren’t still sleeping while world wide breaking news is happening?**

My parents let me sleep in, she wrote, and then backspaced.

Mari:

**Is it a crime to want a good nights sleep????**

Alya:

**YES,**

**wait actually no,,,**

**but not today!! you’ve gotta tell me what’s going on for you!!!**

Her fingers hovered, hesitant but she wrote what she wanted with only a little bit of guilt over being so closed off. 

Mari:

**Actually, I’m not sure I want to share my name.**

**NOT RIGHT NOW AT LEAST**

**It’s just so weird and unexpected right?? I want to figure out how I feel about it before I make any decisions**

She bit her lip again, watching as Alya typed and then stopped, and then started again.

Alya:

**That’s cool girl, as long as can talk to you about mine!! I barely even know Nino, I just met him!!**

Marinette grinned in response to that, checking her other unopened messages, most from her classmates, and found Nino’s immediately. She’d have to talk to him after Alya.

Mari:

**Nino was one of my best friends!**

She hits send before she realizes how that sounds.

Alya:

**WAS?????**

Alya’s reply makes her laugh again, but she’s already typing. 

Mari:

**ITS NOT BAD!!! We just got moved to different classes the last two years, so we drifted apart a bit**

**Im sure you’ll get to know him soon!!**

She switched back to Nino’s messages, a smirk on her face.

Nino:

**Mari you’ve seen the news right**

**The soulmate stuff? I need your help**

**I have the new girls name. Alya Cesaire??**

**Mari wake up**

**Mariiiiiiii**

**Answer me what do I doooooooo**

Mari:

**You talk to her silly!!!!**

She stifled giggles at his immediate answer.

Nino:

**NOOOOOOOO**

**You sat with her yesterday right? What’s she like?**

Marinette almost typed out a short description of Alya’s fierceness and kindness, but then she had an idea. With a few clicks, she copied Alya’s number and sent it to Nino, before doing the same thing and sending Nino’s to Alya. Then she sent them each a little winking face and went to check on her other classmates.

Rose and Juleka had both asked her what she thought, but neither had told her their name, and Marinette just sent an agreeing text to each of them, saying that she wasn’t quite sure what to make of all this either, and that she was going to wait before deciding anything about the name. Ivan had sent her a thankful note that she almost squealed over when he revealed that Mylene had his name and he had hers, though after the situation with Stoneheart and how it resolved she wasn’t surprised. It was when she reached Alix’s text that she had to stop and re-read the message.

Alix:

**Marinette you’re good with problems**

**What if I hypothetically have two names**

**And then half an hour later:**

**Marinette are you awake yet**

**Nope ok**

And then ten minutes ago, which would have come in as she texted Alya:

Alix:

**How bout now**

Mari:

**I’m up**

Marinette sent that text immediately, and then started typing more.

Mari:

**What do you mean two names??**

She moved from messaging to the internet, where she searched ‘two names’, and then ‘two names name tattoo’, and then ‘name phenomenon two names on skin’.

And found to her surprise a list of forums detailing other people dealing with this, too. By the time she’d finished the first post about a man who’d found he had two names and one was his girlfriend and the other his girlfriend’s ex boyfriend, Alix responded.

Alix:

**Like. I’ve got two names not one and I don’t know what to do**

Marinette scrolled through the reply to the post, where the original poster had already responded again and said he’d talked to his girlfriend, who also had both names, and apparently lingering feelings for the ex, and then they’d called the ex together and he had booked a flight for that day to come talk with them in person and figure it out. 

Mari:

**It doesn’t seem like a bad thing**

**I searched it up and there are stories and people online already talking about it**

**You’re not the only one, and it seems likely that the two people you have might also have each other as names!!**

She based that conclusion off of the next two responses, where someone had detailed how they’d ended up having both of their roommates names and after revealing it, they’d all confessed that they liked each other. The person after that wrote that they had two names but was already married to someone entirely different, and how they’d chosen not to seek out their name because they were already happy with their spouse.

Alix finally texted back.

Alix:

**That’s… good**

**I guess I just got scared because I hadn’t heard of anyone else who had this**

**And I thought I might have to choose**

Mari:

**Some people are choosing to ignore the names entirely, Alix**

Marinette forced down her own insecurities with that one. 

Mari:

**You don’t have to choose between them, and you might not have to choose either of them anyway! And whatever you do I’m here for you and I’ll support you!**

The line was silent for a while, and Marinette checked her other messages. Alya and Nino had been oddly silent since she’d given them each other’s numbers. And no one else from school had texted her yet. She went back to the message boards she’d found, clicking another answer where someone said that they had woken up and they didn’t have a name at all- that they’d searched every inch of themselves and come up blank. The replies to that one ranged from downright mean to very nice messages about the asexual and aromantic communities.

Alix:

**Thanks**

**It’s umm. My names are both in our class.**

**What do I do at school**

Marinette froze at those replies. And then she frowned.

Mari:

**You’ll have to talk to them I guess**

**But it they are who I think they are then I don’t think you’ll need to worry**

**Just let them know that you’re still unsure of what to do and how to react! They’ll give you the space you need to process, I know it.**

Aix didn’t text her back, and neither did anyone else, but Marinette was absolutely certain she didn’t want to meddle in Alix’s name business the way she did with Alya and Nino. And with the only people left being Nathaniel, Chloé, and Sabrina, she put her phone down and opened up a sketchbook, intending to make full use of her day.

*****

Damian was absolutely certain that he’d end up strangling someone.

Whether it would end up being Grayson, whose hand still hovered anxiously over his collarbone as he hovered anxiously over Damian, Brown, who seemed intent on heckling him for his name, or Drake, who wouldn’t stop trying to hypothesize and was driving them all insane with his theories, he wasn’t sure, but he truly felt about three wrong words away from murder.

“And this is when we all stop bothering each other and go to our rooms, or go catch bad guys,” Todd said from the doorway, and Damian couldn’t stop himself from raising one derisive eyebrow. “Whatever sounds more therapeutic to you.”

Todd had been his staunch ally in the past few days, in that while no one seemed to be willing to share the names now branded on their skin, everyone still wanted to discuss them- except for himself and Todd, who had stated from day one that whoever tried to ask him for his name first would be getting shot somewhere non-lethal but very painful.

Father had looked very disappointed in his threat, but had completely backed up his refusal to acknowledge the names. Of course, Father had his name branded very visibly on his hand, stretching from the side of his left wrist and down the edge of his forefinger. Damian had harboured no doubts that the tidy cursive ‘Selina Kyle’ he had seen was directly related to the fact that Catwoman had been at large the past few nights, drawing out her game with Batman with a few meaningless robberies where she would simply break in and then not steal anything. Which would make them simply breaking and entering, but Damian rather thought that she’d not appreciate the downgrade in severity that would bring to her reputation.

“I’ll take the docks tonight,” Damian submitted his claim before standing up, setting aside the sketchbook he’d been working in. 

“Not without one of us you won’t,” Grayson snapped, and Damian suppressed his irritation. He’d only been alive again for two months, and he was tired of the coddling that didn’t truly do anything except annoy him- what did it matter if he took the docks or another section to patrol? He was as likely to be injured on his own as he was with Dick, or, god forbid, one of the others watching his back, and he wasn’t stupid enough to not call them in if he needed assistance. The time frame for the overprotective streak that his death seemed to evoke in them was fast coming to an end, but there wasn’t an end in sight from how they acted.

“I’ll go with,” Todd shrugged, and Damian watched as Grayson bristled. “Should be pretty quiet after those busts yesterday.”

“Let’s just go,” Damian muttered, the slight anticipation of going out and _doing_ something immediately quashed by the thought that they were just babysitting him. He suited up in record time, waiting for Todd to catch up.

“Did you steal the keys?” He found himself asking as Todd drove one of the Batmobiles to a squealing halt in front of him.

“I have copies,” Todd bragged. “Haven’t had to steal the keys since I was shorter than you.”

Which didn’t warrant the dignity of a comeback, but Damian obliged anyway. “You’re deluding yourself again. I caught you swiping them two days ago.”

“Fuck, how’d you see that?” Todd complained as Damian got in. “Swear I checked to make sure no one was home.”

“I was bluffing, but thanks for confessing anyway.” Damian managed to keep a straight face until the moment Todd punched him, but after that he was snickering to himself and punching back. The easy camaraderie was new on him, but it settled in his chest softly. They all seemed to be- so affected by him dying. He wondered why they hadn’t seemed to care when he was alive the first time.

And of course, he reminded himself again that he had taken the idea of his father for granted, up until the moment he was gone. 

“About the names,” Todd said finally, splitting the silence that had fallen over them. “I’m not exactly chasing down anyone based on a scribble that randomly appeared on my body.”

“Seems more Drake’s way,” Damian sniffed.

“Exactly,” Todd said, grip relaxing against the steering wheel. “Replacement’s just happy to believe someone out there wants him.”

“Something you and I have no need of, clearly,” he drawled sarcastically, “Seeing as how we both _know_ no one would ever want you.”

He did get punched again, but he considered it worth it.

Even if he was being babysat.

He could do without the name on his chest, when the price for it was the life he lived with his father and… siblings.

*****

It wasn’t until the next week that Damian realized that he might care, just a bit more than he thought, about the name. He was in class, sitting through another boring lecture on strictly American history that was not only wrong but blatantly racist, and as he lazily corralled his thoughts to decide whether he should raise his hand and correct Mr. Bishop _again_ he saw the girl two seats in front of him stiffen. It was the only warning he got before she screamed, the sound tortured and ear-splitting, and he was the first one by her side to see what happened.

There was no blood, she wasn't injured, but she clutched her arm tightly, still screaming, and he froze as he saw the black spidery writing of a name mark, the color seeping out and almost withering until all that remained of the dark writing was a slight shining like scar tissue, immortalizing the name. 

He was still holding her, he realized, one arm steadying her as she sobbed, and clutched her arm, and the faces of his classmates were wide and terrified. He glanced at the teacher and then helped her up, grabbing her stuff and taking her to the door.

“I’ll escort her to the offices,” he said, and he didn’t realize until they were halfway down the hall that his hand that wasn’t helping her stand up straight was resting protectively over the name on his chest. He ripped it away and continued down, mind swirling and the classmate still openly weeping. 

“Are you hurt?” He said, for lack of anything else.

She shook her head, the cries dipping down to sniffling, and he wasn’t sure what to do but he patted her shoulder in a half sure supportive motion. 

“It didn’t hurt,” She whispered past the hiccups in her voice, disbelieving and grieving. “I feel like it should have hurt.”

He couldn’t answer her, the idea making him sick to his stomach. He had died before- he was dead not even two months before the names appeared, and though he had black ink on his ribs, his chest felt too tight at the thought that his name might have appeared on someone else, not black and dark, but in silvery scar tissue.

He left her at the nurses office, and returned to class, to find it empty except for the teacher. 

“I sent everyone else out early,” Mr. Bishop sighed, gathering up his own papers. “There were only twenty minutes left anyway.”

Damian nodded, throat tight. “Thank you.”

He isn’t sure why he says it but he can’t deny the relief at the thought of going straight home after that. So he says thank you, and he gathers his books and bag, and as he moves to leave, Mr. Bishop stops him.

“Thank you, Damian,” He says, hand on his shoulder. Damian struggles not to shrug it off. “For helping Anna. Maybe it doesn’t speak well of me as a teacher, but it took me too long to collect myself, and I’m not sure…” he trailed off, looking shaken.

Damian waited, because as much as he would usually say something dismissive, his teacher seemed ready to fall over.

“Thank you,” he said finally, repeating himself and meeting Damian’s eyes. “I’m glad you were here to help her.”

“It needed to be done.” Damian said, because that really was all he could say.

“But you’re the one who did it,” Mr. Bishop said. “I won’t keep you. Head home.”

Damian did. And when Brown started in about names again that night, he snapped.

“It’s none of your business,” He said viciously as she teased once again that he should share his name. “And if you don’t stop asking, I’m going to run you through non-lethally and leave you pinned to the wall until Alfred can get you.”

“And that’s our cue,” Todd said, watching from the corner. “Steph, knock it off.”

His threats had grown less frequent as he’d actually found himself growing here, and he felt a twinge of regret when he saw her face fall, her guilt at having actually upset him.

“I’ll stop.” She said, voice too soft, sounding almost like Mr. Bishop in his confusion and shock. “Sorry, kiddo. Didn’t realize I was taking it too far.”

Damian took a deep breath, letting the boiling angry heat in his chest lower, stopping himself from spitting out something nasty. “Don’t ask me about it again. Please tell everyone to stop asking.”

He saw Todd’s look of- some mix of pride, surprise, and a warmth that settled his anger the rest of the way. He didn’t want to deal with that, so he nodded to Brown again and walked back to his own room, locking the door before lifting his shirt, staring at the name on his skin.

Still black and fresh and boldly there, vibrant even against his darker skin. He swallowed down nausea at the thought that his own name might not look the same, on Marinette Dupain-Cheng, whoever or wherever she was. 

Before he could stop himself, he grabbed his phone, finding his most secure app and searching for her. Just her last name, just in case, but he finds her very quickly anyway. 

The Dupain-Cheng bakery in Paris is the first result, and most after that are articles about the business, but in the blurb below one of the links he sees the mention of the owners, and their one daughter, Mari-

The blurb cuts off there but its enough. He closes it out, almost guiltily, his hands not shaking but his heart heavy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to those of you who read and leave kudos and comments!!!!! Feel free to stop by at scribble-blog on tumblr if you'd like to shout at me directly, or if you like getting updates a day or two early :)  
> With love,  
> Ali

**Author's Note:**

> Come and visit me on tumblr at scribble-blog!  
> And don't forget to comment- it drives my passion for writing this story! All the love that you pour into commenting gets poured in return right back into me writing this story, which really just means that you're passing some love right back to yourself! Let's all be a little bit more lovely to each other and ourselves.  
> With love,  
> Ali


End file.
